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Side by side exist the Authentic All and its counterpart, the
visible universe. The Authentic is contained in nothing, since
nothing existed before it; of necessity anything coming after it
must, as a first condition of existence, be contained by this
All, especially since it depends upon the Authentic and without
that could have neither stability nor movement.
We may be reminded that the universe cannot be contained in the
Authentic as in a place, where place would mean the boundaries of
some surrounding extension considered as an envelope, or some
space formerly a part of the Void and still remaining unoccupied
even after the emergence of the universe, that it can only
support itself, as it were, upon the Authentic and rest in the
embrace of its omnipresence; but this objection is merely verbal
and will disappear if our meaning is grasped; we mention it for
another purpose; it goes to enforce our real assertion that the
Authentic All, at once primal and veritable, needs no place and
is in no way contained. The All, as being an integral, cannot
fall short of itself; it must ever have fulfilled its own
totality, ever reached to its own equivalence; as far as the sum
of entities extends, there this is; for this is the All.
Inevitably, also, anything other than this All that may be
stationed therein must have part in the All, merge into it, and
hold by its strength; it is not that the thing detaches a portion
of the All but that within itself it finds the All which has
entered into it while still unbrokenly self-abiding, since Being
cannot lodge in non-Being, but, if anything, non-Being within
Being.
Being, then, is present to all Being; an identity cannot tear
itself asunder; the omnipresence asserted of it must be presence
within the realm of Being; that is, it must be a self-presence.
And it is in no way strange that the omnipresence should be at
once self-abiding and universal; this is merely saying
omnipresence within a unity.
It is our way to limit Being to the sense-known and therefore to
think of omnipresence in terms of the concrete; in our
overestimate of the sensible, we question how that other Nature
can reach over such vastness; but our great is small, and this,
small to us, is great; it reaches integrally to every point of
our universe- or, better, our universe, moving from every side
and in all its members towards this, meets it everywhere as the
omnipresent All ever stretching beyond.
The universe in all its reach can attain nothing further- that
would mean overpassing the total of Being- and therefore is
content to circle about it; not able to encompass or even to fill
the All, it is content to accept place and subordination, for
thus it preserves itself in neighbouring the higher present to
it- present and yet absent; self-holding, whatever may seek its
presence.
Wherever the body of the universe may touch, there it finds this
All; it strives for no further advance, willing to revolve in
that one circle, since to it that is the All and in that movement
its every part embraces the All.
If that higher were itself in place there would be the need of
seeking that precise place by a certain right path; part of
seeker must touch part of sought, and there would be far and
near. But since there is no far and near there must be, if
presence at all, presence entire. And presence there indubitably
is; this highest is present to every being of those that, free of
far and near, are of power to receive.
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